Milestones and Errors – White Sox Drop Another in KC

The White Sox were once again unable to pull out a win against the villainous Bruce Chen. The Panamanian Pouncer (he only pounces against the Sox) once again earned himself a victory against his favorite opponent. Sloppy defense and failure to capitalize on some early scoring chances soured some hitting milestones for a pair of Sox.

White Sox (65-53): 4
Royals (52-66): 9

An infield single by Alcides Escobar would come around to bite Jake Peavy in the 1st (and perhaps again later) when the very next batter, Alex Gordon, hit a double down the line to drive Escobar in. In the 3rd, a trio of errors would prove even more costly. Miscues by Tyler Flowers, Gordon Beckham and Alex Rios helped the Royals to a pair of unearned runs. Peavy, for his part, didn’t pitch terribly. He struck out 6 and walked just 1 in his 5.1 innings of work. Just 3 of his runs were earned.

The White Sox offense, however, did not do the things they were supposed to do. Multiple times scoring threats arose, with runners on early in innings and outs to work with. Multiple times those innings would end without any damage being incurred. Enter Paul Konerko. As was the case last time Konerko missed a string of games, he is primed to go on another tear upon reentry to the lineup. In the 6th the Sox finally got on the board against Chen when Paulie knocked a 2-run HR. Eric Hosmer answered Paulie’s shot with one of his own as he used his smooth swing to put one more tally on the board.

In the top half of the 8th Kevin Youkilis achieved his 1,000th career hit. The very next batter, Adam Dunn, achieved a milestone of his own by swatting his 400th career HR and more importantly at the moment bringing the White Sox within one run of KC.

Between the 4 errors and serving up 4, count ‘em, 4 infield hits to Alcides Escobar (he would come around to score 3 times) the Sox still had a shot in this game until Mike Moustakas took Bretty Myers deep to extend the Royals lead to 9-4.

Plus: Milestones are pretty neat, and the White Sox have seen 3 of them this season. Unfortunately all 3 were in losing efforts, but it was very kind and efficient of the boys in black to condense these 2 into 1 losing effort.

Minus: Bruce “Cy” Chen. Is it real? Is it mental? Is it sample size? The Sox can’t seem to get past the guy. Of course, more glaring than the Chen factor, being that 4 runs were put on the board, is all of the errors. Can’t win games that way, and the Sox had done a great job for most of the season in that regard. Put it behind, salvage the next one.

Player of the Game
Adam Dunn – .149 WPA

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